After being homeless for almost three years, the congregation of St. John Baptist Church near Tappahannock was so happy to get into a new building, members recently spent three days celebrating the facility’s dedication.
“Yes, indeed, it was wonderful,” said the Rev. Linwood Jones Jr., who’s been pastor of the Essex County church for 47 years. “It was really exciting. Like the old saying, ‘There’s no place like home.’ ”
The house of worship had stood in the Mount Landing part of the county, about 50 miles southeast of Fredericksburg, for parts of three centuries. Founders laid the hand-hewn logs of the floor joists six years after the Civil War. In 2016, members gathered tearfully around the rubble that remained after a monstrous tornado leveled the building on Feb. 24 that year.
Displaced by the storm, the St. John congregation received help from churches near and far, from neighbors as well as people they’d never met. Many were among almost 300 guests who gathered on Sunday, Dec. 16, for a dedication ceremony that included lunch, went on into the evening and resumed Monday and Tuesday nights.
“It was amazing, and exciting to finally be back home after all that time,” said Sandra Payne, church clerk and secretary. “It’s a beautiful building.”
The new church is 7,200 square feet, considerably larger than the previous one, which consisted of the sanctuary and a separate annex. The new facility, a pre-engineered one-story metal building with stained glass windows, features a sanctuary that can seat 299, a baptismal area, kitchen and fellowship hall.
It cost $870,000 to build, and the church used insurance money and private donations. The pastor said white and black churches in the area contributed—some as much as $25,000 and $30,000—toward the rebuilding.
“It really was wonderful,” Jones said.
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